How can we explain the latest Wall Street Journal/MSNBC poll that shows only 27 percent of respondents have a positive view of the Republican Party yet the Democratic presidential contenders are, at best, tied with President-elect McCain? Is it the inanity of the corporate media? Is it is ignorance of the American voter, who has been brainwashed to believe the right-wing tool McCain is a "maverick"? The next several months will tell.
It’s surely not a good sign that the nation sits paralyzed before multiple crises while people distract themselves with an evil pervert in Austria and some celebutard girl posing semi-nude in Vanity Fair. The corporate media would not cover this stuff if Americans didn’t tune in, in huge, denial-soaked, distraction-addicted numbers.
Obama must show he is "an average guy" — how’d that work out for us with W? We need a president who is average with Washington, Lincoln and FDR — our crises are that dire. And Jeremiah Wright — must keep that front-and-center. Did Obama do enough? Was he too late? Is he damaged? Has the cow jumped over the moon?
Nor is it a good sign that the "gas tax holiday" of President-elect McCain and Sen. Clinton (perhaps running as his vice president?) has not been laughed off stage. How many ways is this a ridiculous idea? And Yet Obama is the "elitist…out of touch with average Americans" who is the party pooper by refusing to endorse it.
The proposed three-month suspension of the federal gas tax would, at most, give the average driver a savings of some $30 over the entire summer. It would deplete the federal highway trust fund by between $9 billion and $11 billion. McCain proposed to let that loss just add to the deficit (he’s the "conservative," remember). Clinton at least claims she would get the money back from a windfall profits tax on the oil companies )good luck getting that past a Senate GOP filibuster).
Of course there’s no time to enact either proposal, so they can be cynical props for candidates who want to show how in touch they are with the proles. They won’t discuss the affect this loss of revenue would have on the already inadequate funding for infrastructure — not merely "roads and bridges," but the kind of 21st century multi-modal transit that is our only way out of this mess.
There’s no guarantee the savings of a tax "holiday" would even be passed on. People would be encouraged to drive even more, thus driving up demand, thus, driving up prices. McCain and Clinton know all this. Their cynicism is high octane. Clinton’s position is especially shameful because it buys into the Republican ploy that the answer to every problem is a tax cut of some kind. In fact, the tax cutting of the past 25 years have decimated our schools, infrastructure, health care and even the regulatory agencies that should be checking everything from Wall Street to nuclear power plants upwind of major U.S. cities. As conservatives used to tell us, there’s no free lunch.
It is a cynicism that encourages the new entitlement thinking: that everyone should get a mortgage and own a "home," whatever their credit-worthiness or savings; that our economy could migrate from making things of value to selling "financial services" and running up debt to the Red Chinese; that we can continue destroying farmland and wilderness to build McMansions and subdivisions, adding more time and distance to the single-occupancy vehicle commutes, adding stress on what had been rural roads and highways. And all this would somehow be free.
The American people who accept all this are engaged in the magical thinking that is slowly destroying the country. Even the mainstream media are starting to crack the door on an inkling of a hint of a thought that this oil price rise is different. Gee, the New York Times wonders, prices rise but supplies stay tight. Some speculation may be involved, yet supplies stay tight (in the runup to the housing bubble, as in most cases, speculation increased supply). But mostly this is what a global oil peak looks like. The major oil companies don’t want to build new refineries; they know they are in a mature industry. Major oil producing countries are holding back inventories for their domestic use. Drilling in the Alaska wilderness would barely dent this problem in the short-term, and make is worse long-term by making Americans think they can keep driving so much.
Yet most of our political and media class are bent on making you believe that magical electrical or hydrogen or ethanol/biofuels (enjoy the world food crisis) will allow us to keep living as we do now. Most of us live in a suburban model conceived in the 1950s, when oil was abundant. The game is up. Most Americans don’t get it. No alternative fuels can keep this going. For one thing, they take more oil to produce than the energy they create — and these are the realistic technologies.
The emphasis ought to be on retrofitting suburbia for transit and town centers, while providing incentives for urban infill (including great schools) and heavy investment in such things as high-speed rail. None of the presidential candidates are talking about this. No wonder so much of the American people engages in magical thinking.